Friday, February 19, 2010

All Hail The Sultan Of Spin

He was not the first Senior Minister (that honour goes to Rajaratnam), but Minister Mentor is so contrived a title no other country has it. What he should be called now is the Sultan of Spin.

Instead of admitting that foreigners were brought in to make up for the declining birthrate characteristic of all developed nations, Lee Kuan Yew is pushing a new yarn that foreign workers were essential to build the integrated resorts. Hello, the people of Singapore never wanted the casinos in the first place. Even if these foreigners had to be brought in to do the dangerous work, do they have to stay on after the construction is done?

Mr Muthu Kumar, 32, a workplace safety and health officer, put it across succinctly, "I'm fine with foreigners as long as I have a job." The reality is that foreigners are taking over the workplace, from backroom technical support to cushy front desk sales counters, hardly the jobs that "no Singaporean wants to do". Even CNA, based on casual observation at the Resort World Sentosa, doubts the majority of the 36,000 job openings, the fictitious number that Dr Tony Tan shed crocodile tears over, supposedly available at the two casinos, will be actually allocated to Singaporeans. Need we add that university places are also reserved for foreigners, resulting in parents having to send their children abroad, at great and unnecessary expense? Old age is no excuse for failing to get the facts right.

About Me

"There is nothing to prevent you from pushing your propaganda, to push your programme out either to the students or with the public at large... and if you can carry the ground, if you are right, you win. That's democracy. We're not preventing anybody" ~ Lee Kuan Yew, 31 January 2005